Volatility
by KartheyM
Summary: What should have been a simple visit to a barren planetary body ends up holding more surprises than SG-1 bargained for. How will they get home without a Stargate, and can they survive long enough to figure that out if the only life form on the planet is as volatile as a nuclear bomb?
1. Chapter 1: Agree to Disagree

_My name is Peace; I was once Chaos. I have very little memory of my life before Secranda; they say I had neither the power of sight nor hearing. They rescued me from the dead planet where I was, brought me to their city, with it's scientifically-advanced society. The doctors were so proficient that they assured me of their ability to restore my sensory faculties, complete with the recognition and comprehension that I would need along with my new capacity. They replaced the damaged nerves in my ears and eyes—_  
_By the time they realized their error, most of them were dead. Immediately, they placed me back in the stasis chamber where they found me and—not wanting to risk another planet's safety by sending me through the Stargate—instead sent me to a passing asteroid large enough to provide a comfortable habitat. They sealed my ears, blocked my eyes and restricted my movements as precautionary measures. They said they mapped the asteroid's orbit, and that the next time it was close enough to use the Starbridge again, they would have had enough time to devise a remedy for the failed cure they had already done but could not undo._  
_I have survived since then, kept alive within the chamber, occupied by nothing but my own thoughts, waiting for the day when I would once again pass near Secranda and perhaps be cured completely this time. I only wished that day would be soon..._

"Gentlemen, I want you to put your personal feelings aside and come to a decision: where would it be in the best interests of Stargate Command to explore next?" General Hammond stared across the table at the two men, Colonel Jack O'Neill and Dr. Daniel Jackson.

Daniel and Jack, on the other hand, stared at each other, both daring the other one to go first.  
The hesitation only caused them both to speak at the same time.  
"General, I think that we should—"  
"General Hammond, sir, with all due respect—"  
Hammond slapped the table with open palms in mild irritation. "Colonel, you first!" he ordered.

Jack nodded, "Sir, I think SG-1's next order of business should be P5X-589."  
"The planet that destroyed the probe we sent out a few days ago."  
Jack shrugged and nodded, "Well, sir, the probe could very well only be missing the camera unit; we aren't exactly sure what happened to it after the readings came back as habitable and then the video cut out."

Daniel leaned forward, "Sir," he said to General Hammond, "rather than exposing myself and the team to a potential threat, would it not be a better idea to travel to one of the Ancient planets, like P43-267? I'm sure it would provide us with valuable information on a world where the Goa'uld have no power—perhaps they might even have technology and knowledge to help us defeat them."  
Hammond looked from one to the other.  
Jack rolled his eyes, "Seriously, Daniel? The last three missions have been reconnaissance! Can we just go someplace where I can get a little action?"  
"Is that all you think these Stargate missions are good for?" Daniel asked derisively. "Going to other planets and killing things? Maybe P5X-589 doesn't want any visitors!"  
"Yeah, well, last I checked, the Four Races weren't too keen on us humans poking around their stuff, either!" Jack shot back.  
"Where are Captain Carter and Teal'c, Colonel?" Hammond cut in, attempting to diffuse the situation.  
Jack huffed. "They're in the lab, sir—monitoring a third location."  
"General Hammond, sir!" Sam Carter swept into the room just then. She snapped a quick salute, a huge grin on her face. "I think you'll want to see this. I may have found something."  
The trio followed her back to the lab.

"As you know, sir, we began receiving signals from the area of P7-450 three days ago—almost as if there was a second Stargate there, like the two we have here on Earth." She began pulling up images and data on the screen. "I began monitoring the signals, and the day before yesterday, I discovered that it wasn't a second stargate on P7-450—it was a second planet within the orbit of P7-450." She pointed to the astronomical rendering of P7-450, as the frame-by-frame animation depicting planetary shift brought a smaller celestial body into view.

"Planet?" Jack scoffed, "That's not a planet! It's smaller than Pluto, for crying out loud!"  
"No matter what it's size," Sam defended, dimming under the scorn of her friend, "emissions indicated the presence of a Stargate. And if you'll direct your attention over here," she moved to another console. "I sent a probe through the Stargate to the location, as per standard precautions, General. I got this footage a few minutes ago."

She pulled up a seven minute video. The first five minutes showed the probe scanning over a vast, empty wasteland, the edge of the horizon clearly visible in the distance. Whatever the planet or asteroid was, it's dimensions couldn't be more than ten miles in any direction. Nothing moved; the whole area seemed a deserted wasteland. Then the probe crested a small knoll, and everyone squinted incredulously at the screen.  
"What in the name—?" Jack asked slowly.  
An object rested among the rocks of the body designated P7-451.

"It seems to be a...crypt of some sort," Daniel muttered.

"A crypt?" Jack repeated. "The only thing on this...this _asteroid_ is a crypt? We are definitely not going, then!" he shuddered, "Dead worlds and I don't...don't get along very well." He subconsciously rubbed his shoulder where one "artifact" from a deserted planet much like this one, only ten times bigger, had inadvertently stabbed him.

The video continued as the probe approached the "crypt." As it got closer, markings appeared on the stone surface. Just when it would have been close enough to decipher the message, a sudden flash erupted from the crypt, and the video cut to static.

"What was that?" Hammond asked.  
Carter shook her head, "I don't know, sir. There seemed to be no other life forms detected. The atmosphere seems breathable, the terrain is stable—sir, I think this warrants further inspection," she kept a grin off her face as she slipped the last phrase right by her comrades, "if only to retrieve the probe and figure out what went wrong."  
Daniel and Jack all but glared at her; she'd won, and they knew it.

Sure enough, the General nodded. "All right, SG-1, you are authorized to investigate P7-451 and retrieve the equipment. You'll depart in one hour."  
Daniel shook his head as he complied; he didn't mind a simple recon mission; it was what he wanted, anyway.  
Jack, on the other hand, was extremely unhappy.  
"This had better be worth it," he muttered to Sam.

An hour later, the four members of SG-1 stood at the foot of the ramp leading to the Stargate as the final three chevrons locked in place. The event horizon exploded, and they were off.

As they took their first steps onto P7-451, Daniel stopped and blinked.  
"Whoa, hey guys," he glanced around him, "haven't we been here before?"

A magnificent garden spread in all directions before them.

Teal'c took the beautiful sight in one impassive glance. "Indeed we have been here, Daniel," he observed, "Was it not this same world on which we were all trapped within a virtual reality construct based on our memories?"

Daniel turned to Sam, who was staring around at all the flowers and trees in bewilderment. "Are you sure you dialed it correctly?"  
"I'm sure!" she gasped, nodding emphatically. "I don't know why all this didn't show up on the probe."

"Well isn't that the darndest thing!" Jack piped up sarcastically. "Hey Carter, I'll do you one better: we came here by the Stargate, right?"  
Carter looked up at Jack, who stood at the top of a small hill where they had all been gathered upon arrival. "Yeah, we did." She frowned in confusion.

Jack smirked. "Well then," he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the gardens—nothing but gardens as far as the eye could see behind him.

"Where's the Stargate?"


	2. Chapter 2: The Voice of Death

Sam Carter knew it was pointless to go charging up the hill and hunting for the nonexistent Gate, but she did it anyway.

"What happened to it?" she asked.  
Jack shrugged like he couldn't believe their situation, "How do we know it was there in the first place?"

"We had to have come through a Stargate," Daniel's mind raced to try and figure out any possible solution. "The wormhole is only possible if there's a Stargate on the other side."

"So where is it?" Jack repeated.

"Perhaps the inhabitants have rendered it invisible, as the Nox did," Teal'c suggested.

Jack shook his head, "I don't think there is another species who has that power."

"Besides," Carter reasoned, picking her way among the flowerbeds, "there is only one inhabitant on this planet, not several. There would be no reason to make a Stargate vanish."

"One inhabitant?" Jack echoed, "where? Why didn't you mention this to General Hammond?"

Carter shrugged, "I couldn't pinpoint the location; I had just received the data when the probe broke down."

"Oh yeah," Daniel recalled, looking around as if searching for something, "by the crypt—which should be..."

"Nowhere in this garden, for sure!" Jack finished. He looked up at the bright sun shining overhead. Everything he knew about astrology told him that you couldn't have a sun without a solar system—and there hadn't been a solar system anywhere near the glorified asteroid when Carter had shown the footage from the probe. In fact, none of what they saw had been on the probe; so which one was lying?  
He gestured toward a clump of trees. "Let's explore while we're here. Maybe at some point the life form will come out and give us a way to leave."

The Stargate team entered the forest. The light was much dimmer there. Daniel couldn't help noticing that the trees were much taller and more spread out than they had appeared. He followed Jack and Sam down the path through the forest.  
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c murmured, "perhaps you have been to this place, as well?"

Daniel looked around, "Wha—of course! P3X-797! Hey guys," he ran ahead to where Sam and Jack had already cleared the treeline, "I know where we—" he froze and his words caught, "—are."

Jack peered out from the treeline of the Dark World; before him lay Hanka—designation P8X-987—in all its deserted glory. Still, there were no people, no animals, not a sound. Jack turned back to Daniel.  
"Do you really know where we are?"

Daniel looked back and forth in confusion. "What is going on?"

"I have no idea," Jack answered, "and I'd suggest returning immediately, but given the fact that this planet has no Stargate—"

"Jack, don't you see how impossible that is? The Stargate is there, we just have to find it and the Dial-Home Device!"

"Daniel, if we can't even establish where in the universe we are, how in the world can we start looking to find these things?"

"Hey, you guys!" Sam pulled out her radiowave meter and switched it on. "Let's just focus on finding the probe; we do that, and maybe we can either figure out what went wrong with it—"

"Or what might be wrong with us!" Jack added, with a significant glance in Daniel's direction.

Carter ignored the jibe and began aiming the mechanism in different directions. She heard a blip when she pointed it off to their left.  
"I'm getting a reading on the signal," she said, "It should be this way."  
They proceeded down through the forest, avoiding the Hanka-like area.

Sam took a turn down a rocky path, and the team emerged at the top of what looked like a large quarry.  
Once again, they all stopped.  
"Not this place again," Jack moaned.  
Sam looked around, and she could not restrain a shudder. It was the place they all referred to as "Hanson's World"—complete with the deserted quarry in which lay the abandoned stones.

"This is not possible," Daniel muttered. "All these places, on one planet?"

Jack scuffed the ground with the toe of his boot. "Meanwhile the planet we were supposed to be on is—"

"Right here," Sam answered, staring at the remote in her hand.

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked as they all stared at her.

Sam pointed to the screen. "The signal seems to be originating inches from here."

Jack began scanning the shrubbery around their ankles. "Then where—DOG-GONE IT!" he grabbed his shin where it had just connected with the corner of something sharp. Just like that, the probe materialized at his feet, half-buried in the bush. Sam brushed the foliage away.

Daniel looked on in complete befuddlement. Jack recovered quickly from his injury and kicked at the probe again, this time with the reinforced steel toe of his boot.

"Found it," he grunted. "Let's get the recordings and go home."

Sam inspected the mechanism. "Doesn't look like anything is salvageable, sir. Whatever the blast was must have been an incredible amount of focused heat, to all but petrify the inside and leave the outside relatively intact."

"Since we have no other business here," Teal'c proposed solemnly, "perhaps it is best if we retrieve the damage mechanism and return. It is not difficult to conclude that the being who occupies this place has done so much to retain anonymity."

Jack squinted at the Jaffa, "You mean, like, erasing the Stargate?"

Teal'c paused, the only indication he gave of his lapse in forgetting that they could not return without a Stargate.  
"It would be best to locate the Stargate as soon as possible," he observed.

Jack tromped off through the bracken, muttering, "Ya don't say?"

After wandering amongst the trees for a while, Jack heard Carter call out, "This way, Colonel!"

He stopped; how had she gotten so far ahead of him that her voice reached him so faintly? He looked around for the others. Daniel and Teal'c were just coming into view behind him.  
"Carter?" Jack called.

She emerged from behind a tree right next to him. "Right here, sir."

Jack blinked. "Did you just call me from a ways away?"

Carter gave him that familiar look she got whenever he asked a stupid question with a (she thought) obvious answer. "No sir, you called me; I've been nearby this whole time. You say you heard me calling?"

Jack waved his hand and continued walking, "No; never mind." It must have been his imagination.

They emerged from the trees into a rocky clearing, and Daniel breathed, "Ohh boy."  
SG-1 found themselves staring at the familiar clusters of mud-daub huts that served as residences for the inhabitants of PJ2-445.  
The only difference, Jack thought to himself, is that there are none of those naked natives here, and no white plants.

Sam got within ten yards of the first cluster of "homes" and stopped abruptly. She looked at the others with surprise on her face.  
"Did you hear that?" she gasped.  
"Hear what?" Daniel asked.  
"I thought I heard someone talking."

"I sense a presence as well," Teal'c agreed.  
"What did it say?" Jack inquired.

"It said to turn away and go back," Sam faltered. "It must not know that it's impossible for us to get back." she turned back toward the huts. "Hello? Where are you?" she called. "Don't be afraid; we are friends, we won't hurt you."

"Sam, who are you talking to?" Jack hissed at her, glancing around for any signs of movement. "For all we know, something on this planet is causing us to hallucinate—for example, the fact that the probe seemed to give us false readings, and what we've seen here are places we've already been before."

Carter ignored him and kept talking, "We are willing to leave, but we don't know how to go back the way we came. Can you help us?"

Everyone involuntarily froze, waiting for the answer. A faint breeze swept around them, carrying with it a gentle voice.  
"Come this way."

Jack knew from the looks he was getting from the others that they had all heard it; but was it real? The verbal directions had not been very specific, but something in the way the voice said "this way" caused him to consider one of the huts in particular. He began walking toward it.

"This way?" he verified with Daniel, who walked beside him.

"That's kind of what I felt too, Colonel," the archaeologist confirmed.

"Why do I get the feeling that we're being played again?" Jack grunted cynically.

"Perhaps it is because the being communicates within our minds, and seems to have created an elaborate ruse based on our own memories, to confuse us—as other races have so many times in the past." Teal'c—master of the painstakingly obvious—suggested.

"Nobody loves a control freak," Jack mumbled.

They reached the hut, and Daniel peered inside.

"Hey," he cried, "the crypt is in here!"

"The probe picked up some sort of engraving or markings on the outside," Sam recalled. "Are you sure it's the same one?"

"I'm sure," Daniel said as the others joined him. "The markings are in a bunch of languages—this planet must have been developed by an advanced and well-traveled society. See? Here it is in cuneiform, in what looks to be an early form of Arabic, here again in hieroglyphs, and—aha!" he pointed to another string of symbols. "Early Greek!"

"Great," Jack groused, "It's a Rosetta Stone; what does it say?"

Daniel sounded out the symbols. His excitement faded.

Jack noticed. "Daniel?"

"Well, um..." the young man suddenly became very nervous. He began backing away from the crypt. "The inscription in Greek reads,_ Chalasmos, Charos, Chaos_. I'm guessing the other languages are translations of the same phrase."

"So that would be Calamity, Chaos, and—" based on the first two, Jack wondered if he wanted to know what the third word meant.

"Death," Daniel finished soberly.


	3. Chapter 3: Acquaintance

_*A/N: The bold text is a telepathic voice, to differentiate it from emphasized or sarcastic words. PS. There's an Indiana Jones reference somewhere in here... :)  
_

Jack began backing away. "Okay, that's it," he said, "we're leaving."

Daniel was still examining the inscriptions on the rock. "No, but there must be something concealed in here to help us get home!"

"Daniel!" Sam spoke quickly to keep him from opening the container, "We don't know what kind of technology wiped out the MALP, and we don't want to risk the same."

"Yeah, if it's all the same to you, Daniel, I'd prefer not to have my face melted off by whatever's in the box," Jack added.

**"Hello?"**

All three glanced at each other, each wondering why another would ask such a thing. Gradually it dawned on them that none of them had spoken. An eerie silence settled over the group.

**"Is someone there?"**

Jack saw Sam wince. "What?" he asked.

Sam shook her head, "I'm just hearing voices is all."

Daniel blinked, "I am, too."

"As am I," Teal'c agreed.

"Well, I'm glad we all heard that," Jack observed, "for a second I thought it was happening inside my head."

Sam shuffled her feet nervously, "Sir..." she stammered, "I, ah, I think it did."

Jack looked at her sidelong. "What?"

"I think we're hearing the voice within our thoughts, not actually with our ears."

Daniel began to look worried, "Like Urgo? You think we've been implanted again?"

Sam shook her head. "No, not implanted; it's—"

**"Who are you?"**

At the sound of the voice, all noise died. SG-1 began scanning the shadows to perhaps find the telepathic "speaker."

"Who are _you_?" Jack asked, looking back toward the doorway and wondering if the person might be in another hut.

**"I am Peace. You have come through the Stargate, Colonel O'Neill?"**

Jack's grip on his weapon involuntarily tightened. "How did you know my name?"

"And the Stargate?" Daniel added under his breath.

**"Dr. Sam Carter was just thinking about how worried you were, how you've been very annoyed ever since you left the Command."**

Jack shot Sam a look, but she only shrugged in acknowledgement.

**"I also happen to know that you couldn't get to this place without a Stargate or Starbridge."**

"Peace?" Daniel called, looking around the hut.

**"Yes?"**

"Where are you?"

There was a pause. **"You didn't come here for me? You don't know where I am?"**

"Until you spoke," Sam tried to explain, "we couldn't even be sure anyone was here."

**"But you knew, Sam."**

Carter smiled, "Well, I kind of expected—"

"Okay, I'm sorry," Jack cut in, "this is cool, talking to a voice in our heads and all, but to get back to Daniel's question: where the heck are you?"

**"I'm in here with the stone pod you are all thinking of as the crypt."**

Everyone involuntarily stepped away from the object and stared at it.

Peace's voice came again, **"No, I'm not dead or disembodied. Yes, you can open it."**

Sam shook her head, "Sorry; it's just that, well, the first time we saw this—pod—it kind of destroyed our surveillance equipment."

**"Oh yes, that. I, ah...may have inadvertently destroyed it... accidentally. I sensed it when it first arrived, and I mistook its electronic signals for intelligent consciousness—"**

"So when you tried to interact with it like you're interacting with us," Carter supplied, still looking around for any sign of a corporeal form, "it registered a bolt of light and your telepathy fried the circuitry."

**"I moved it away from here in hopes that whoever sent the thing could retrieve it and leave before you knew anything about me. I didn't realize you would not have any means of returning, and thus be forced to seek me out."**

"Hey, I'm still all for leaving, if that's what you want us to do," Jack said, wondering if looking in every direction as he spoke increased his chances of finding the right direction. "All you need to do is tell us how."

**"All right,"** Peace's voice responded, **"but you all need to stop looking around in different directions at the same time! It's making it difficult for me to communicate clearly. And who is the fifth member of your company?"**

Jack, Sam, Daniel, and Teal'c glanced at each other; was there another, invisible person in their midst?

"Fifth person?" Daniel repeated.

**"Well, I don't know if person is the correct term; it doesn't seem human, and it seems quite a bit underdeveloped, too."**

"I believe you are referring to the Goa'uld symbiote I carry within me," Teal'c suggested to the ceiling. "It is neither a member of our team, nor a consciousness you need waste any energy pursuing."

**"Good,"** Peace's voice sighed, **"it didn't sound very friendly anyway."**

"So...Peace," Daniel began slowly, "can we see you?"

**"I don't know."** Her voice was gentle, almost laughing as the crypt suddenly glowed with a white light. Everyone covered their eyes, and when they looked again, in place of the crypt stood a long, smooth white pod. Cradled within the pod was the body of a woman. The entire body was encased in one continuous shoulder-to-toe jumpsuit, the ears were covered in some smooth substance, and the eyes remained tightly shut, sealed by external means.

**"Can you see me?**" the voice asked.

"Yes," Daniel answered, "if you are referring to the woman in the pod."

**"I am," **Peace answered.

Sam slowly approached the pod. She reached out to touch the woman, but gasped as a plasma force-field deflected her hand.

**"I cannot be disturbed in any way,"** Peace protested. **"Not until the appointed time, anyway."**

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

**"The right people will know how to operate this pod. Meanwhile, it's safer for you if this pod remains sealed."**

Daniel recalled the warning messages scrawled on the crypt. "Peace," he began to ask, but she knew what he was going to ask.

**"Why am I so dangerous?"**

Daniel nodded, but caught himself, "I'm sorry; I meant, um, yes."

**"It really has to do more with my potential than actual danger."**

"How so?" Carter asked.

A light chuckle rippled around the room. **"That is a very long story."**

Jack shifted impatiently. "Well, that's interesting, maybe we can come back later and find out, but for now—meaning no offense, of course—we really want to know how to get off this rock!"

**"I do not take offense, Colonel,"** Peace responded, **"though it is my understanding that you really don't care whether or not you cause offense, so long as you make your point."**  
Jack acknowledged this observation by raising his eyebrows toward her inert form as she continued.

**"I am sorry, but I have no idea, myself, how to get off this—yes, Colonel, you're right it is—asteroid. More than likely my trip was meant to be one-way, in spite of all the promises they made."**

"Who are They?" Sam asked.


	4. Chapter 4: A Haunting Memory

**"I will tell you my story,"** Peace replied, **"but first, I think everyone else is a bit put off talking to a—how did one phrase it—dead girl in a casket?"**

Sam glanced at Daniel, who immediately shook his head to say, "Wasn't me!"

The two of them and Teal'c looked at the only other likely person in the room.

Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged, "You gotta admit, talking to her body while she replies in our heads has got to be near the top of the list of the weirder things we ever did on this job!"

**"Would you find it less disturbing if I produced an image of myself to interact with you?"** Peace offered.

"Well that depends," Jack replied, "how would you do that?"

**"The same way I made this world look like something it isn't."**

"You _made_ it?" Sam echoed. "So you're saying that everything here isn't real?"

"I coulda told you that!" Jack volunteered under his breath as Peace replied.

**"No; I merely wanted to create a repeated environment with the hope of tricking you all into leaving me alone, or at least preventing you from finding me. I will demonstrate by removing the illusion."**

The light around them dimmed somewhat, and as their eyes adjusted, the team was plunged yet again into another environment—but one that they had only seen on the small monitor at Stargate Command.

**"This,"** Peace announced, **"is P7-451."**

Sam gazed around, gasping, "It's beautiful!"

The atmosphere of P7-451 was safe to breathe, but perfectly clear. The only evidence of its existence was a faint shimmer when one stared hard at a fixed point. But it was difficult to stare, when all of space crept by at a nearly-imperceptible pace. Billions of stars and many different planets presented themselves to the naked eye. Here was a place of eternal night sky, with not one iota of light pollution to obstruct the view—a view, thought Sam, Peace has probably never had.

**"You're right,"** Peace's voice responded softly, **"I've never seen it. I have only had my sight for about five minutes of my life...and it was horrible."** She quickly dismissed it. **"Anyway,"** she continued,** "Colonel O'Neill, if you wouldn't mind looking very hard at me, so that I can produce a detailed image from your memory."**

Jack strode forward and stared at the body within the pod. When Peace spoke again, her voice seemed to emanate from the shadows at the back of the cave.

**"Um, Jack?"** she called, **"I'd appreciate some clothes—if you wouldn't mind!"**

Everyone turned to him in alarm. Jack closed his eyes and pictured her face in an outfit. Seconds later, a figure emerged. She had the same light-brown hair as the figure in the pod, and she was wearing standard camo fatigues. She smiled and waved.

**"Hello,"** said Peace.

For a moment, no one moved. Finally, Daniel stepped forward. He reached out and tentatively touched Peace's sleeve.  
He was surprised to find resistance at his fingertips. Peace's eyes watched him carefully.

Daniel blinked. "Y-you're an illusion," he gasped, "but why can I feel you?"

Peace nodded, **"I can create a tactile illusion as well as visual. It does not extend to heat or texture, only pressure."** She gave a wry smile, **"And I can only create the illusion in your mind; it is the illusion you are interacting with. I cannot feel your touch, myself."**

"Peace," Sam interposed, "you said that the last time you actually saw anything was horrible. What happened?"

Illusion though it was, Peace could manipulate the visual representation to reflect her actual emotions. She frowned.  
**"When I came to Secranda, I could not hear or speak. The scientists on Secranda wanted to repair the nerves that would restore these abilities."**

Sam glanced over the fused eyelids and plugged ears of Peace's body. "Did it work?" she asked.

**"It did,"** Peace admitted, **"but the minute the sound registered on my ears..."** her voice faded, and everyone saw Peace's memory in their minds. The team involuntarily closed their eyes to receive the full effect.

Sam heard the rush of sound, the beeping monitors as Peace regained consciousness. Daniel heard the voices of the doctors grow agitated as light entered Peace's eyes. The first thing she saw, Jack realized, was the deaths of about twenty doctors dressed in white. Many of them collapsed, blood pouring from their orifices. Others happened to be near tanks which exploded, or electrical equipment that superheated and caught flame. Everyone felt the fear and helplessness of Peace in that moment, as she snapped her eyes shut, and heard the alarms as one brave soul managed to get her sedated again before succumbing to the effects of—whatever it was that Peace did.

**"That's when they closed me in the life-pod and sent me here,"** Peace resumed as the active image faded (though it would be some time before any of them could sleep without dreaming about the memories). **"They promised me that the next time this asteroid passed Secranda, they will have found a cure for my condition."** Her shoulders sagged visibly, **"I have no idea how long it has been, but you are the first group of people I have been aware of since that day."**

Jack involuntarily backed away. "What is it you do, exactly?" he inquired suspiciously.

**"I gave it a name,"** Peace explained, **"dynamogenesis."**

"The production of power," Daniel translated.

**"Yes,"** Peace nodded, **"terrible power. The minute I move, speak, see light or hear a sound, all substances around me superheat: liquid boils and evaporates, metal begins to melt, wood ignites, and gas explodes."**

Sam sat next to her, "So when those doctors died—"

Peace nodded, **"It was because of me! The agony you witnessed was every drop of moisture in the human body boiling away in an instant."** She glanced back toward the pod. **"Without the capacity to move or see or hear, my world became completely centered in my mind. It was the only thing I could do. Gradually, I began to feel other consciousnesses from time to time, and every so often, I would try thinking a thought and direct it at a specific mind, and I would distinguish their response, though,"** she smirked, **"I still have trouble distinguishing between spoken word and private thought. They sound about the same to my mind."** Suddenly she looked up at Jack and smiled. **"Yes,"** she answered, **"I understand."** After a pause, she said, **"This is thinking it! I have trouble communicating with just one person if I want to stay connected with everyone."** She sighed and looked around. **"Someday they'll come up with a cure. Sometimes a part of me wonders if perhaps the accidents happened because of the new sensation, and perhaps they have faded by now; but I can never forget the way I killed all those people, and I'm always afraid to try."**

Sam laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, "It's all right; I'm sure they still have people working on it."

Tears appeared in Peace's eyes. **"You're touching me, aren't you?"** she guessed.

Sam rubbed the girl's shoulder. "Can you feel it?"

Peace's chin trembled, **"No,"** she answered, **"but I know how happy it makes you."**

"I hate to interrupt," Jack interposed, "but Carter—"

**"You still want to find a way off the asteroid,"** Peace finished.

"No offense, Peace," Jack responded, "but there isn't much we can do for you. You're better off waiting—"

Peace suddenly jumped up with a gasp. She stared at Carter, excitement written all over her face.

**"Do that again!"** she cried.

Sam glanced at the others. "Do what again?"

Peace stepped very close, and her image seemed to stare deeply into Carter's eyes. **"You looked around...and I saw it, through your eyes. I think I might be able to share your senses, Sam, if you'll let me. May I?"**

"What, you mean like possessing her?" Jack frowned at the prospect.

Peace shook her head. **"Not really, I'm not powerful enough for total control; she would still be herself, it's more like a tether, so that my consciousness can be within Sam and move about and feel like this illusion cannot."** She was almost giddy in her excitement.** "Oh please can I come with you and see this place while you look for a way home? I've never seen any of it—just this once?"**

Sam felt sympathy for the confined girl. "As long as it's not dangerous, I don't see why not," she acquiesced.

**"Thank you,"** Peace cried, and immediately her image began fading from sight. When it was completely gone, everyone looked expectantly at Sam.

She raised her eyebrows. "That's it? I don't feel any **Hello there—oh**!" Suddenly her face changed, and she began trying out her teeth and tongue as if speaking were a new sensation. She spoke slow and halting. "**Oh my goodness…oh wow.**" Sam smiled. "Peace, is that you?" Immediately she seemed to answer herself, "**It's me; oh my goodness, I'm actually talking! It's**—" she broke off in a fit of giggling that lasted quite some time. "**I've never done that before,**" Peace/Sam said when she finished. She rubbed her hands together, felt her hair, wiggled her toes and took deep breaths, all with a thunderstruck expression.

After a moment, Sam announced. "Hey, Peace—check this out." She turned her eyes upward to the sky above.

_A/N: Near the end, I still had Peace's words in bold; I figured that would be the best way to distinguish her words from Sam's, even though both are being spoken by Sam while Peace is a part of her consciousness. I hope this isn't too confusing...-KM_


	5. Chapter 5: Nothing More Than Feeling

Peace/Sam's jaw dropped as she stared out into the starry sky, and she fell silent for a very long time. Her breath came in short, shocked gasps.  
**"Oh—oh—it's...glorious!"** she breathed. **"This is what you would have seen?"** She looked around the rocky landscape as if the whole thing were made of glistening diamonds instead of the dark, heavy naquadah. **"I never knew..."** she caught her breath. Tears came to her eyes, and she quickly felt her cheeks with her fingertips.  
**"Wet,"** she said.** "I feel it, and it's wet! Oh!"** It took her several minutes to stop crying and regain her composure. Peace/Sam looked down at her heavy combat boots crunching on the rocky terrain, then up at Daniel. The archaeologist mused at the gleam in Sam's eyes—similar to the one she used to have when she was making fresh new discoveries at the start of the Stargate program. That gleam didn't come so often and so fresh anymore.  
**"Can..."** Peace/Sam was so excited that she could barely get the words out. **"Can we walk? I haven't been able to do that for a long time."**  
Sam answered her, "Of course we can; unless there's anyone else on this asteroid that we should be aware of."  
Peace/Sam pondered for a moment.  
**"Nothing comes to mind,"** she responded.  
Jack watched this exchange take place with both voices coming from one body, and he gave Teal'c a knowing glance. Teal'c remained stoic.  
"Ladies?" he addressed Sam. "Are we done?"  
Sam nodded twice.  
Jack extended his hand outward. "Let's head that way and see what we find."  
Sam took a few experimental steps forward. She encouraged Peace, "That's the way; just let me do the walking. **All right,"** Peace agreed, **"I'll do the looking."** She tipped Sam's head back to look at the stars again. "Um, Peace?" Sam asked, "Would you mind watching the stars on the horizon? It's kind of important for me to watch where I'm going. **Oh yeah,"** Peace brought her head down and glanced at her feet. She muttered through Sam's mouth, **"I forgot all about that. Go ahead."**  
Soon SG-1 was traveling steadily over the surface of the astroid.  
There wasn't much to see besides rock and more stars, but Peace/Sam stared around at everything—even the other people. Teal'c caught her staring at him.  
"Peace," he addressed her, "it may be of interest to you to know that people do not stare so closely at one another."  
Sam averted her eyes, "Sorry, Teal'c. **I'm sorry, too,"** Peace/Sam chimed in, almost before Sam finished. **"It's just that you all look so different on the outside than you did on the inside."**  
She looked at Jack, and a curious expression came over her face.  
"What?" he asked self-consciously.  
She—it was not clear whether it was Sam or Peace at the time—looked away and muttered, "**It's nothing**...really, it's nothing." But she smiled knowingly.  
They walked on, the guys getting more of a kick watching Peace stare around at everything than the landscape itself.  
Daniel happened to glance at a sudden gleam in the distance. "What's that?" he pointed. Everyone walked quickly toward the location. A small cairn protruded from the uneven landscape.  
"Dr. Jackson," Teal'c surmised, "this protrusion seems the result of artificial construction, not natural erosion."  
Daniel squinted at it, brushing away the dust at the top of the cairn.  
"You're right," he said, "there seems to be some kind of symbol etched into the top of this thing."  
Jack looked over at Sam/Peace, who seemed to be hanging back for some reason.  
"Do you have any ideas what this might mean?" he asked her.  
Slowly, Sam/Peace inched forward. Daniel leaned back to give her a clear view.  
**"That symbol!"** she gasped, **"I've seen it before; I know it! It was—"** suddenly her voice cut off and she stumbled forward a few paces.  
"Whoa!" Jack steped forward to catch her. "Easy there."  
Sam blinked. "I can't—I don't feel...Peace?" she looked around. "Are you there?"  
"Wait a minute," Daniel rose to his feet, "Wasn't Peace, you know—" he gestured vaguely with his hands, "in you?"  
Sam nodded, mildly disoriented. "She was, but then it felt like she just..." Sam faltered, "left—like when a call gets cut off."  
**"Hello? Jack? Sam?"** the voice came faintly in their ears.  
Everyone began looking around.  
"Peace?" Jack called.  
**"...Too far...can't stay...back toward..."**  
"Her telepathic link must be dependent on proximity and physical energy," Daniel guessed. "Possessing Sam must have worn her out, and when she came close to the stone, the connection was probably too far for her and she had to let go."  
Sam glanced back toward the crypt anxiously. "How far did we come? Should we go back and figure out how to move her closer?"  
"Look," Jack was beginning to lose patience, "we've spent too long here as it is; the more time we waste trying to move things around, the greater risk we run of General Hammond thinking we died and—" he stopped as Daniel and Sam looked at him. All three recalled the time when Jack had been the one left behind, and General Hammond had resigned him for dead, while Jack himself had given up hope of seeing his home again. Then no one could forget the countless times Daniel had been the one left behind, trapped behind the Stargate on a foreign world. Sam certainly didn't want to find out what it felt like.  
"Peace said she knew the symbol," Sam remarked. "We need to at least find out what it is."  
"Peace?" Daniel tried walking back the way they came. "Can you reach me?"  
**"Daniel! I need...symbol!"**  
Daniel moved to take one more step.  
"Aht!" Jack warned, "Not too far, Daniel!"  
"Peace," Daniel called, thinking as loud as he could and wondering if that helped, "You cut out in the middle of that last thought; were you going to tell me where you had seen that symbol before?"  
**"Yes!"** Her voice was still so low, Daniel had to strain to hear it. **"It... Secrand...medic...symbol on—"**  
"What does she say?" Jack hollered.  
Daniel held up a finger and tried to listen as Peace kept thinking, **"Medical unit...door...need to...open...now turn—"**  
"Daniel?" Sam called.  
"_Ssshhh!"_ Daniel was almost frantic; even at that faint level, he could feel the sense of urgency in Peace's telepathy. He listened, but she had ceased. Agitated, he strode back to the cairn.  
"So?" Jack asked.  
"I couldn't hear her very well; it was faint, and flukey, and with you two nagging at me—"  
"Hey!"  
"Daniel," Sam was much better at calming down than Jack was. "What could you make out?"  
Daniel examined the symbol within a set of double-rings, like a seal.  
"She mentioned the medical unit on Secranda," he said, "also a door. I'm guessing this might be a Secrandan medical symbol, much like our Rod of Asclepius."  
"You mean the stick with the two snakes and the wings?" Jack interposed.  
Daniel shook his head, "Uh, no, that would be the caduceus. _Not_ the same thing; anyway, she mentioned opening something now by turning—"  
Daniel reached out and grabbed the stone imprinted with the symbol. He slowly rotated it like a handle, and was surprised at how easily it moved. The bits of gravel at their feet rattled as the surface of the asteroid shook, then everything was still.  
Daniel looked up; nothing had changed. "Okay, so what did I do?" he asked.  
"I believe you have opened a portal, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c answered.  
Daniel carefully examined the ground in front of the cairn. "Then where is it?" he asked.  
"Hey professor," Jack called, "try checking your back pocket."  
Daniel stood and faced the colonel. "Jack, now you're just being mean. I don't have a—_tunnel_!" Daniel's eyes fell on the wide opening just behind Jack, and he stopped speaking. Sam was already examining the walls.  
"Whatever this is," she remarked, "it's been here, all sealed up for a while. I'll bet this tunnel extends through the entire asteroid."  
"If that symbol was something Peace recognized," Daniel postulated, "it was probably meant for her to find."  
"How could she find it if she had no means of getting here?" Teal'c wondered.  
"But if she did," Daniel repeated, "then it would be here for her, that's what I'm saying." He continued as everyone gave him their attention.  
"Remember what Peace said about her banishment? Either the Secrandan doctors would find a cure—or perhaps Peace would find a way to solve the issue herself."  
"Physician, heal thyself," Sam quoted. She blinked at Daniel as realization came over her face. "Peace might have been a medical student before all this happened."  
Daniel nodded, "For someone who chooses to use the time she has to spend alone on an empty world to develop telepathy and invent a name for her destructive abilities—she doesn't sound like someone who has spent her entire life as Helen Keller to me."  
"Daniel Jackson, I do not know of this—"  
Jack held up a hand to silence the Jaffa, "Yeah, another time, Teal'c. Where does that leave us, Daniel? Say Peace found this place. What do you suppose the Secrandans meant her to do with it?"  
Daniel looked at the perfectly round opening in the naquadah asteroid. "What if this tunnel leads to a way off of here?" he mused.  
Jack glanced uneasily into the blackness. "I guess it would be in our best interests to explore it, then," he concluded.


	6. Chapter 6: The Man in the Cavern

The sound of their footsteps echoed off the walls as they proceeded cautiously down the tunnel. Their flashlights only cut the darkness by a small fraction.  
Jack sighed, "What are we looking at, Daniel?"  
The archaeologist shrugged, "Apparently a bunker of some sort. I figured a society as well-established as the Secrandans would no doubt allow for the likelihood of self-medication, especially for someone as advanced as Peace—or whoever she really is."  
"There is another possibility that we have not considered," Teal'c spoke up.  
"What's that, Teal'c?" Sam asked, inspecting the alcoves and offshoots in the tunnel.  
"We could be heading into an even greater trap," the Jaffa suggested.  
"How do you figure?" Jack asked, shining his beam down a particularly long side tunnel.  
"Colonel O'Neill, do you not recall the time when we were sent to the prison planet? If Peace is in fact a criminal, this asteroid could really be her prison, and the Secrandans built this place in case she cured herself and thought to escape. We would, then, actually be headed into an even deeper prison, rather than the Stargate we seek."  
SG-1 stopped cold.  
Jack frowned at Teal'c. "Now why'd you have to go and say a thing like that?"

"Hello?"  
Once again, the team looked at one another as a strange voice echoed around them. Shuffling footsteps resounded from deep within the cavern.  
All four stood in the middle of the tunnel. Was there another telepath on the asteroid?

"Della?"  
Sam jumped and let out a small scream as a cold, gnarled hand grasped her forearm. A wizened man with a sparse white beard smiled at her.  
"Della, it is so good to see you," he continued, completely ignoring the three males staring at him. "Many times I wondered if you would ever find this place—then when you finally arrive, I hardly even recognize you!"  
Sam fought for something to say as she pulled away.  
"I—I'm not...I don't—you..."  
Finally the man noticed that the one he called Della was not alone. He looked around at the others.  
"Wha—who... Oh!" he realized his mistake, "I am so very sorry," he released Sam's arm and bowed low to the group. "I mistook you for someone else."  
"We gathered that," Jack nodded.  
"We've met her, by the way," Daniel added. "The one you call Della."  
The man blinked. "Of course you spoke with her; otherwise how could you have known about this place? Now it is time we met, you all and I. My name is Shevan; who are you and why are you here?"  
"We are...explorers," Jack explained hesitantly. "From...far away. We dialed this asteroid by mistake and we are just looking for a way back."  
"Ah!" The man gave a long, hearty chuckle. "No, it's no mistake that you are here. Please come with me!"  
The team glanced uneasily at each other as they followed Shevan down the winding maze of tunnels, further into the heart of the asteroid. At last they came to a wide cavern where the odd old man must have spent his days. There was a small campfire flickering next to a bedroll, and plenty of supplies stacked against the wall of the cavern. Shevan laid out a blanket for each of them to sit on before settling himself on the bedroll.  
"So tell me, explorers," he clasped his hands in his lap eagerly, "what may I call you, and where are you from?"  
Jack provided only the most basic introductions, giving their names and saying that they came from Earth.  
Shevan raised his eyebrows. "Earth? My, my; how interesting! It is in another galaxy, yes?"  
Jack bobbed his head, "You could say that," he admitted.  
"And you come through a Stargate, do you?"  
Daniel nodded.  
Shevan leaned forward and whispered, "So you've been looking for a Stargate here by which to return, eh?"  
"That's it, exactly," Jack agreed enthusiastically. "Do you know if there's one down here?"  
Shevan stared at him for a long time.  
"I'm sorry, no," he said at length. "The only thing here is the Starbridge, and that can only activate from another Stargate."  
"Did you say Star _Bridge_?" Daniel echoed. "Pea-I mean, Della used that term as well. What is that?"  
Shevan chuckled, "You suppose that the only way of intergalactic travel is by Stargate? Ehh, I don't blame you; Starbridges are rare, and they mostly involve naquadah-rich satellites like this one. I assume you were headed to Secranda?"  
The team glanced at each other.  
"To be honest," Sam shrugged, "we weren't very sure where we were headed. All we had was the number."  
Shevan shrugged, "Ah, well, the numbers are the same. This asteroid happens to be on an opposite orbit from the planet, but because of the Starbridge, a Stargate will connect to whichever one is closest to a certain point. Dialing Secranda from the planet's surface would automatically connect the Starbridge." The pot hanging over the fire began to steam, and Shevan leaned back to check it. A delicious smell wafted from it. He smiled, showing weathered, yellow teeth. "I have food ready; would you like some?"  
The suggestion of food reminded the team that they had been on this asteroid for several hours.  
Jack started to stand. "No; thanks for the offer, but we really—"  
"I insist!" and faster than they would have expected from an old man, Shecan had bowls and utensils laid before each of them, and he was ladling rich broth under their noses.  
"Eat, please!" he urged them. There was nothing else for it. SG-1 duly ate.

The soup was incredibly good. Jack tasted a rich beef-and-potatoes kind of flavor. Daniel savored the distinctive bite of curry and cinnamon on his to hue and wondered if perhaps the Secrandan culture stemmed from Earth's Mesopotamian regions, while Sam gulped down what tasted like Italian herbs in a chicken broth. If any of them had chanced to remark on their flavor, it might have led them to wonder how all the bowls came from the same pot...but as matters stood, everyone was too busy tasting to worry about talking.  
Once they had finished the meal and set the bowls aside, Shevan commenced the conversation.  
"Now," he said, "Tell me about Della; is she well?"  
Jack was feeling very much relaxed, with a belly full of good soup. "Oh yeah," he answered readily, "as well as can be expected. She seems to have found her own way of surviving up on the surface."  
"Except," Daniel added, "she doesn't seem to remember her old life, before the accident."  
"Ah yes," Shevan nodded with a strange expression, "the, ah—the accident...What makes you say she can't remember?"  
"Well, she told us," Sam informed him, "and she introduced herself as Peace, not Della."  
"Peace, eh?" Shevan wore a rather duplicitous expression, like he was hiding something very important. "Did, ah—did she mention any...other names?"  
"The crypt where we found her was inscribed with the name Chaos," Teal'c offered candidly.  
"Chaos..." Shevan echoed dreamily. His face was wan and heavy, as if burdened with a difficult memory.  
"What's wrong?" Sam asked immediately; she felt that Shevan's obvious knowledge of Della's history might provide some insight into these two strangers. "What can you tell us about her?" She turned the man's question back on himself.  
Shevan seemed to shrink slightly at the question. "I...I don't know much," he stammered. "I was told to be wary of her until a certain time."  
"You mean the Secrandan doctors wanted to give her time to heal herself, or give themselves time to find a cure before she met you?" Daniel asked.  
Shevan's eyes opened wide and he snorted, "Cure? You think her dynamogenesis is some kind of disease, do you? Is that what she told you?"  
A slow chill settled over the group.  
"H-how...how did you know what it was called?" Sam gasped. "She told us she made up the term during her time here."  
"Nonsense," Shevan responded immediately. "There is no way someone such as Della could come up with such a complicated term. The Medical Society named it such. She's probably been alone for so long that she's forgotten where she knew the term, so she made the assumption that it came from her."  
"How could she know it if she couldn't see or hear?" Daniel pointed out.  
Shevan turned to him with a strange glint in his eye. "Dr. Jackson, you assume that her telepathic abilities were a recent skill, developed only after all her other senses were deprived; that is what she told you, yes?"  
A sudden rumble from somewhere within temporarily distracted everyone. Shevan did not even flinch.  
"Every so often, a buller will dislodge a few stones," he explained indifferently.  
"Buller?" Jack echoed.  
Shevan gestured to the cavern around them, "What, you don't think I built these caverns myself? Of course not; the bullers live down here."  
"Bullers?" Now it was Sam's turn to repeat. She stared around at the large cavern and recalled the wide, tall tunnels. A creature large enough to make them—  
"We are safe in this cavern," Shevan reassured them. "Bullers are mortally afraid of light. As long as I keep this fire going, they won't come anywhere near it."  
The team remained uneasy.  
"These...bullers," Jack began, "what do they, ah, look like?"  
Shevan raised an eyebrow at him. Jack shrugged, "Just, y'know, in case we see one."  
Shevan grimaced. "Big, ugly blighters. You know they're coming because you can hear their claws—as big as your face—scrabbling on the walls. They have these long snouts, too, and they sort of snuffle as they walk." He waved his hand, "but you won't have to worry about bullers, or the misseks, or the putters—so long as you stay near the fire. Yes sir, a fire's good for lots of things, like burning off the dream gasses. Nasty business, those dream gasses! They make you see queer things before they knock you flat and you can't move—" his voice dropped, "and then you die."  
"Yeah, um," Daniel looked around the room. "I noticed you have a fire, but how long will it burn before you will need to add wood?"  
"Ehh," Shevan appraised the flame, "Could be another cycle or so."  
Jack stood, anxious for a chance to shake off the dread of creatures and gasses in the darkness with activity. "Where's the woodpile, Shevan? I'll stock up."  
Shevan leapt to his feet and grabbed Jack's shoulder, "No! You must stay here. I know these tunnels, I can get the wood. I can even check on Della," he glanced at Sam, "if you want me to. Please," he begged Jack, "I would never forgive myself if you got trapped in a missek's web or accidentally stumbled over a putter's nest. It's life or death out there, and I know every one of those tunnels. Please stay!"  
Jack indulged in a barely-audible moan as he resumed his seat.  
Shevan grabbed a lantern and strapped a hunting knife to his belt.  
"I shouldn't be gone long," he said. "I'm sure Della will recognize that I know you all, if she doesn't recognize me." He waved as he headed down the tunnel. "If I'm not back or you don't see Della before the fire dies..." his voice faded as he traveled out of earshot.  
The team exchanged glances. Every one of them was afraid to move.  
"It would appear that we are left to fend for ourselves," Teal'c observed.  
"Indeed," Jack muttered, staring into the darkness where Shevan disappeared.


	7. Chapter 7: Lost in the Labyrinth

No one said anything for a long time. They all remained exactly where they were, close to each other, right up next to the fire.  
Jack tossed a twig into the flame with a sour expression. "Gasses and misseks and potters and whatnot! Why'd he bring us down here if it's so dangerous, huh? Why are we even here, you mangy, flea-bitten sonofa—"  
"Jack!" Sam warned him. She stoked the fire in an attempt to coax more light out of the dwindling flames.  
"He's right," Daniel remarked. "Why did Shevan bring us into this cave and then leave, if he knew it was going to be so dangerous for us?"  
"Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c proposed, "it would seem that our host is not as friendly as he would have us believe."  
Sam frowned, "I don't think..." her voice trailed off and she said no more.  
"You think Shevan would mean us no harm, that he's really doing what he says he is?" Daniel finished.  
"What about all that stuff he was saying about Della, or Peace, or whoever she is?" Jack objected.  
Daniel nodded, "Yeah, there was definitely something he was hiding, or just not saying."  
"What, though?" Sam cried. "You two are just assuming the worst of him because you don't like him, but honestly! I mean, he's got to have food stored down here, and did you see any trees up on the surface—_real_ trees? Then where is he getting—" She stopped talking as she realized her defense was actually a valid point against her, and against Shevan.  
"Where is he getting the wood?" Jack finished. "Is that what you were going to say?"  
Realization dawned. "Yeah! Hang on a sec, let me try..." Before anyone could figure out what she was thinking, Sam thrust her hand into the flames.  
"Carter!" Jack jumped forward and pulled her back. "Have you lost your mind?" he screamed in her face.  
Sam held his gaze in perfect sanity. "Sir... Look." She held up her hand. Jack grabbed it and examined it closely, but there was not a mark anywhere.  
"The fire is an illusion, just like the ones Peace made on the surface. The warmth stayed the same, no matter how close we were," she said. "The light never changed, and since Shevan left, the pattern of the flames' movements has followed a set rhythm—like he needs to be here to randomize it."  
Jack was still trying to regain his composure after the fright she'd given him. "When...when did you figure all this out, Carter?"  
"Pretty much ever since Shevan told Daniel how long the fire would last," she answered. "I thought it was weird when my attempts at stoking the fire seemed to have no effect."  
"So obviously he's not gathering firewood," Daniel concluded. "What else could he be doing?"  
"Perhaps we should try and find him," Teal'c suggested. "We might demand an explanation. If he has tricked us with the fire, it could be that he has spoken lies about the monsters, as well."  
Jack took one look at the tunnel and shook his head. "Why risk it?" he asked. "None of us is going anywhere as long as that fire isn't going out. I say we all stay here and—"  
Before he finished speaking, the flames extinguished and the cavern was plunged into darkness.  
"Well," Daniel remarked in the petrified stillness, "I guess that takes care of that!"  
Jack dug out his flashlight. "Everybody follow my lead and stay close."  
Four more flashlights clicked on, but their artficial light felt weak and thin compared to the light of fire.  
"What are we going to do now?" Sam asked, involuntarily whispering.  
"Find Shevan," Jack whispered back, taking tentative steps down the tunnel where their mysterious host had disappeared.

"O'Neill, do you wish to interrogate him as to the veracity of his motives?"  
Jack stopped and nailed the Jaffa with a sneer, "Of course not! That comes later."  
Daniel crept up alongside Jack. "Then why are we trying to find him?"  
Jack shrugged. "He has a lantern. I can't see squat with these flashlights."  
Just then, Sam hissed, "What's that?" and everyone froze in panic.  
From the darkness beyond came the distinct _scritch-scritch-scritch_ of claws on rock—face-sized claws.  
Jack felt his stomach turn as the snuffling sound began somewhere behind him.  
"Snuff...snuff...Ker—_CHOO!_"  
Jack whirled around as Daniel sneezed behind him. The archaeologist at first misunderstood the steely glare his friend fixed on him.  
"Sorry; can't help the allergies! I—" It dawned on him. "Oh...sorry."

They rounded a bend and came to a fork. The scratching was more distinct now, but still not clear enough to distinguish whether it was organic or mechanical (if Shevan was manufacturing the sound to keep his "guests" at bay.) Moreover, when they tried to determine which tunnel was likeliest to contain either Shevan or the buller, no one could settle on a direction. The sound seemed to come from every direction, and the light from none. Dare they risk pursuing a direction in hopes of finding the elusive old man, or should they be prepared to face a terrible beast?  
After several minutes of waiting, Jack pointed down a tunnel. "Let's check this one, see where it leads."  
"What if we run into one of those monster things?" Daniel asked.  
Jack responded by directing the beam of his flashlight into Daniel's face. "Just blind it; you should be all right; besides, as long as we stick together, we should be fine."

The four friends made their wary way down the tunnel. The scratching sound continued, but if a creature made that sound, it never changed in frequency, so they all felt reasonably safe assuming that the creature, if it existed, did not detect their presence.  
They shined their lights on anything that moved. Carter made the discovery about thirty yards into the tunnel of what they assumed could be a missek: a spiderlike creature, with dozens of hinged legs rather than only eight. She caught one in the beam of her flashlight, and it raised its front legs defensively, but that was the extent of its response. The minute she turned her beam away, it continued crawling right past them. Daniel shuddered as they passed by several more groups of misseks (which all stayed outside the beams of light; their forms looked like shifting black spots upon the cavern walls and floor), but they didn't seem to mind the human intruders.

As they headed down yet another side tunnel (this one bedecked with long, sticky missek webs, nearly invisible to the naked eye, but very much annoying to the tactile sense!) Jack stopped short and whacked the wall with his fist in frustration.  
"The old man was right, we're never going to find him ourselves." He planted himself in the middle of the hall.  
"_SHEVAN!_" he yelled.

Everything stood still. Then, gradually, they began to hear a small sound that swelled and grew as the source approached.  
"Ah, great," Jack moaned as the horde of misseks approached, "The pitter-patter of tiny feet—_RUN_!" He gave the order as the first wave appeared at the end of the tunnel.  
"Which way do we go?" Sam hollered over the din of angry misseks—evidenced by the furious hissing that had not been their response before. No one wanted to stick around and figure out if they bit as well.  
"Anywhere!" Jack hollered back.

They careened through the halls just ahead of the arachnoid aliens, heedless of whether they were retracing their steps or not. Jack dodged down a side tunnel and nearly tripped over Teal'c's boots as the Jaffa followed close behind him. Daniel kept running until he happened to see a brief flicker as if from a flame. He grabbed the nearest arm: Sam's.  
"Hey!" he pointed.  
Sam yelled over her shoulder at Jack and Teal'c, who were in the act of darting down another tunnel.  
"Hey Colonel! Teal'c! I think he's this way!"  
They kept running, but it seemed as if Shevan (or whoever held the lantern) was always just around the next bend.  
Daniel kept running until he heard Sam call his name. Then he noticed that he could no longer hear the misseks or the bullers. In fact, now as he stopped to catch his breath, Daniel noticed something else.  
"Where are Jack and Teal'c?"

Sam glanced back the way they came—unsure just how many turns they had taken in their flight, or if the colonel and the Jaffa had followed them in their mad dash. The only light in the tunnel came from their flashlights.  
"I don't even know if they heard us or saw where we went," she remarked to Daniel. She started backtracking, perhaps to make sure they weren't waiting just behind.  
Daniel grabbed her shoulder to stop her.  
"Aht, let's not have any more splitting up. It's safer with two flash—" Before he could finish the word, Sam's flashlight suddenly sputtered and died.  
"What?" she began pounding the shaft. "I could have sworn I changed the batteries in this thing!"  
"Okay," Daniel grabbed her hand, "Now we really can't split up."  
Sam looked around at the tunnel as Daniel's flashlight only cast a thin glow in front of them.  
"What do we do now?" she asked, "Go back and look for Jack and Teal'c, or keep going to try and find Shevan?"  
Daniel squinted to see as far as he could down the tunnel.  
"I think our best bet would be to find a way out of here. Maybe he hasn't gotten to Peace yet, and we can return to her and she can locate Jack and Teal'c for us."  
The pair continued down the tunnel. Sam sniffed and brushed her bangs out of her face.  
"Who do you think is lying?" she suddenly asked Daniel.  
"Lying?" Daniel echoed, pausing to decide the likeliest tunnel to lead to the surface.  
"Well, yeah," Sam responded. "I mean, either Peace—or Della—is telling the truth, and she really did have a history of education and at least somewhat of a normal life, and her condition is an accident... Or Shevan knows the truth, and she is some kind of malformed, malicious murderess—like Linea."  
Daniel winced at the memory of the Destroyer-of-Worlds he had helped escape from the prison planet where they found her.  
"You really think she is another Linea?" he asked Sam.  
She shrugged, "It's her word against his."  
"Maybe if we found the two of them, we could get this whole thing sorted out," Daniel remarked.  
Sam shivered as they continued in semi-darkness. "I really hope Jack and Teal'c are okay."  
Daniel didn't reply, but from what he knew of the pair, Jack was not one to go out without a fight, and as long as Teal'c was alive, the colonel would not be fighting alone.


	8. Chapter 8: Counterpoint

After about two hours of walking (or what might have felt like two hours; passage of time was pretty much negotiable at this point), Daniel paused and looked around him.  
"Check it out," he pointed to the ground. As Sam watched, he dropped a round pebble on the floor of the tunnel. Rock struck rock—and the pebble rolled behind them.  
Sam grinned at Daniel. "We're on an incline," she realized. "That must mean we're close to the surface!"  
This knowledge brought new strength to their tired legs. Encouraged, they traveled onward. The incline continued, and the constant switchbacks and turns did not seem so bothersome any more. Finally, Daniel grabbed Sam's arm and pointed.  
"Look!" he gasped. "Do you see what I see?"  
Suddenly they were both as awed and amazed as Della had been.  
"Stars!" Sam gasped as they ran the remainder of the tunnel and out into the open. She shared a glance with Daniel. "It's glorious," she echoed Della's words.  
Daniel nodded. "Yes, it is."

As soon as they set foot on the familiar rugged terrain of the outer surface, Daniel and Sam looked around in an attempt to get their bearings.  
"When I first opened the tunnel, the cairn was about," Daniel paced out the distance, "here." He stamped his boot on the empty ground.

**"Sam!"**  
She whirled around at the voice—but she could not see the speaker. Meanwhile, Daniel watched her jerk around for no apparent reason and reacted accordingly.  
"What's wrong?"  
Sam frowned quizzically. "You didn't hear that?"  
"Didn't hear wha—"  
**"Daniel, is that you?"**  
Now it was his turn to whirl around in search of whoever was speaking. Suddenly, as they made eye contact, they both knew.  
"Oh," Daniel remarked. Sam just grinned.  
"Peace?" she called.  
Peace's voice reached them clearly, **"Oh, I've been so worried! When we got cut off I thought for sure you might gave been caught and killed or something!"**  
Sam glanced at Daniel; did she know of the other occupant of the asteroid?  
"Killed by whom?" Daniel asked.  
**"By the Enemy,"** Peace answered.  
"What enemy?" Sam asked.  
**"The one imprisoned within a small life-pod near this asteroid! He wants to control me, and he doesn't want any interference in his plans."**  
Sam knew she had to choose her words carefully. "Peace, there was no enemy."  
**"What do you mean?"**  
"His name is Shevan, and he told us he's been waiting for you."  
Peace remained silent for a very long time. Finally—more as a challenge than actual interest—she demanded, **"What else did he tell you?"**  
"The truth!" Daniel retorted, more out of moral compulsion than actual belief.  
"We know all about it," Sam explained, "more than you could have told us. It's all right."  
Unbidden, the memory of their meeting and conversation with Shevan rose to the forefront of Sam's mind. Also present was the image of Peace in those ridiculous fatigues Jack "dressed" her in, observing the memory like a video. She smiled and waved in Sam's mind's eye.  
**"May I?"** she gestured to the memory.  
Sam nodded, unsure how else to respond to the image in her head, "Sure, go ahead."  
In a few seconds, Peace had relived everything that had happened since they were first separated at the tunnels.  
**"It's him,"** Peace breathed. **"He's free—and he's going to kill me."**  
"Peace—if that's really your name," Daniel reasoned with her, "no one is after you; we found the tunnels. I'm sure the right one leads to a way off of here."  
**"Yes, hmm,"** a hint of sarcasm crept into her telepathic voice, **"I was wondering about that: this asteroid is solid naquadah; what tunnels are you talking about? And what were those creatures? I didn't think this asteroid could support any kind of life, that's why they sent me here."**  
Another shared glance; this was exactly the suspicion that had driven them all out of the cavern. Daniel went to show Peace the truth.  
"Look, over here," he walked back to the tunnel entrance, "It's a tunnel. Ouch!" Daniel pulled his hand back in suprise as his palm connected with something solid in the darkness. He stepped back, gazing in horror. "Uhhh, Sam?"  
Sam joined him and felt the solid wall that now made the end of only a shallow cave on the surface of the asteroid.  
"When you saw that symbol on that cairn," Peace recalled, "I knew something was wrong, but we got cut off before I could tell you so."  
"I remember that," Daniel said, "You kept trying but we were too far away to hear."  
**"Too far away?"** Peace repeated.** "Daniel...distance has nothing to do with it. I am just as far away now as I was then."**  
"But..." Daniel realized he had made a wrong assumption in thinking that they might be closer, since Peace's thoughts were so clear. "I thought you said that it was too far—" A cold weight settled in his chest. From the look she gave him, Sam felt the same way.  
**"Now you understand why I call Shevan the enemy,"** Peace remarked softly. **"He is not a telepath himself, but he can interfere with people's perceptions. He has been near enough to me for some time.**  
**"I tried reaching out to him once, and found several of his memories, which made him afraid of me, and he figured out how to conceal himself from me. After that I could only sense him every so often, but I could never tell if he was passing in orbit, or whether or not he had ever actually landed on the asteroid.**  
**"It was Shevan who interrupted my connection with you, Sam, and then interfered when I tried to ask you, Daniel, to describe more what you saw around the cairn, because I knew that the cairn was not supposed to be there. I suspected Shevan, and I tried to ask you to turn back, but Shevan used my words to lure you in."**  
Sam sat down on a nearby rock as she tried to make sense of everything. "So Shevan manufactures a way for us to get into a cavern that he also made up out of a cave..."  
**"I see you had a small inkling of his duplicity, Sam, and this is what led you to test the fire Shevan had made,"** Peace supplied.  
"So if there are no caves," Sam continued, "we should be able to find Jack and Teal'c too."  
"Or if we can't," Daniel added, "maybe Peace can sense them."  
Peace sighed in their thoughts. "**I'm sorry; when Shevan got you all into his illusion, he screened your minds from me. I found you two when you stopped believing him and made it out of his illusion. I have tried but I cannot locate Jack or Teal'c."**  
"Well," Sam tried looking all around, "They have to be around here somewhere, then. Daniel and I can find them."  
**"Tell me, Sam,"** Peace objected, **"if a man is powerful enough to conceal himself and four others from a telepath, would it not be simple to conceal their forms from a normal human?"**  
Sam was forced to admit that this very well could be so.  
"Why would Shevan do this?" Daniel burst out. "You said he is here to kill you, Peace; why?"  
**"From what I could find,"** Peace explained, **"Shevan feels like some sort of criminal. My guess is that his presence in alternate orbit from Secranda was intended to be a form of isolated imprisonment."** She paused as an idea sprang to Sam's head. **"I suppose it could be true, Major; perhaps the Secrandan doctors never really intended to find a cure, or they couldn't, so they sent me out here to die. Sending Shevan to the same location would accomplish the same purpose: either he kills me in his search for escape, and then dies himself when there is none, and I am no more than a statistic on a page; or I might kill Shevan, and thus save the bureaucracy a load of processing paperwork."**  
"Oh Peace," Sam murmured sympathetically, "I'm so sorry."  
Daniel suddenly looked up with a strange expression on his face. "Hey Peace, would you mind..."  
"Not a problem." She withdrew her consciousness from theirs, giving them a little privacy.  
"Daniel, what is it?" Sam asked.  
He smiled, "I'm pretty certain now that Peace is telling the truth. Remember how we noticed before that she sounded like an academic student?"  
Sam nodded.  
"And now she just mentioned the bureaucracy of Secranda; if she was born nuclear like she is now, how would she know about such things?"  
Sam nodded grimly, "And we already know firsthand how trustworthy Shevan is!" She turned back to the direction they had been facing. "Peace?"  
Her voice reached Sam's mind immediately. **"Yes?"**  
"Do you remember anything at all from your life before the—before your accident?"  
**"Hmm, not much; I remember some tactile sensations. Here, I'll put the feeling in your fingers; it doesn't make much sense to me anymore."**  
Sam gasped as the sensation tingled in her fingertips. She could not help thinking there was something familiar and definite about the feeling.  
"_Braille!_" she cried to Daniel. "Peace remembers reading Braille!"  
"**Is that what it is called?"** Peace asked innocently.  
Sam caught herself, "Well, ah, that's what we call it on earth. Peace, when you feel these sensations on your fingers, does it carry some kind of meaning with it?"  
"**Now that you mention it,"** Peace replied, **"I suppose it does. There are words that I know the meanings, but I am not sure how I do; they just make sense to me."**  
Daniel shook his head, "A young woman completely cut off from the world, and yet still manages to glean an education in the only way possible. This is just too incredible!"  
Sam was not so quick to be enthralled. "Speaking of cut off," she told Daniel, "I think we'd better focus on finding Jack and Teal'c as soon as possible, or at least forcing Shevan to enact his endgame as soon as possible."  
**"Let me help!"** Peace offered immediately, **"I can search telepathically over every stone and find out which parts are hidden, to narrow your search."**  
"Good idea," Sam agreed, "Maybe you can't detect them, but you can be sure that Shevan would try to keep you out of the place he's got them.  
"I only hope he's not doing anything to endanger or threaten them right now."


	9. Chapter 9: Loss of Volition

_A/N: Did you catch the earlier Indiana Jones (Raiders of the Lost Ark, specifically) reference? If so... keep an eye out for the not-so-subtle Dr. Who reference in this one... ;-) -KM_

Deep in the tunnels of the asteroid, Jack was beginning to feel claustrophobic. Their flashlights had dimmed so as to render them little better than useless, and the darkness crowded in on the colonel very uncomfortably.  
To make matters worse, Carter and Daniel had gotten lost somewhere in the mayhem caused by the misseks. Jack and Teal'c had soon outdistanced the little buggers, but by the time Jack thought about regrouping, it was already too late.  
"Did I ever tell you I really can't stand scientists?" he whined to Teal'c.  
The Jaffa missed the sarcasm. "Indeed you have, Colonel O'Neill," he answered in perfect seriousness, "many times in the past years."  
Jack slumped against the wall of the tunnel, faced with another bend which he knew would lead to another bend which would inevitably end in yet another bend.  
"It's funny, y'know?" he panted to Teal'c, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say this asteroid was bigger on the inside than it is from the outside."  
"That is not possible," the Jaffa objected. "An enclosed space must be contained within the confines of it's boundaries; a thing cannot be bigger on the inside than it is on the outside."  
Jack stared at the tall, stone-faced alien for a minute, and then nodded. "You're right; it's a dumb assumption."  
"Not to mention impossible," Teal'c reminded him needlessly.  
Jack walked on, and the alien followed. "How long do you reckon we will have to keep wandering this maze before we run into someone we know?" He mused.

_"_Not long."  
The answer to Jack's question did not come from Teal'c. It was a woman's voice, and as Jack blinked, he saw her emerge from a tunnel just ahead of him.  
"What the—" Jack automatically scrambled for his gun, slung over his back—but then he noticed her fatigues.  
"Peace?"  
She laughed, "Relax, guys; it's just me." She held up her hands in defense.  
Jack found it very easy to relax when he was this tired. "What are you doing here? How did you get here?"  
"I'm here looking for you," she answered. "You've been gone a long time. Where are Dr. Jackson and Major Carter?"  
Jack shook his head, "I don't know, Peace—or should I call you Della?"  
She smiled and shrugged, "Whichever is easier."  
Jack sighed, "We got separated when the misseks attacked; who knows, they might still be lost in these tunnels."  
"Ah yes," Peace murmured, "the misseks; they are relatively harmless creatures, but you probably passed too close to their nest, and they felt threatened."  
"All I know is," Jack answered, "I didn't want to find out what would happen if I stepped on one."  
"A wise decision," Peace remarked. "Now, don't you think it's time we searched for Daniel and Sam?"  
Jack spread his arms. "Where do we start?"  
Peace shrugged, "I found you when I just wandered in one direction through the tunnels; maybe that technique would work for finding the other two."  
"Colonel O'Neill and myself have been wandering already for some time," Teal'c pointed out. "To wander aimlessly anymore would be a fruitless expense of great effort."  
Peace pondered this a moment. "I suppose you might be right, big guy," she admitted. "Do either of you have any string we could use to mark our path?"  
"Nope." Jack had been idly sifting through the gravel on the tunnel floor and now chucked a tennis-ball-sized lump against the far wall, where it shattered. "There goes that idea, Ariadne."  
"Who?"  
"Never mind."  
"Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c stared at the wall where the rock had hit, "Perhaps a mark such as this one would aid us in finding direction in the tunnels."  
Jack squinted at the wall; the rock had left a dusty white mark on the surface. He picked up a palm-sized chunk; the inside scratched off easily, like chalk. He held it up for Peace and Teal'c with a grin. "I think this will work," he said.

By dragging the chalk-like rock along the wall, Jack made a continuous line that enabled them to make progress without backtracking. What they did not reckon was the fact that they might already be backtracking. After walking long enough for fatigue to reach their legs, Jack, Teal'c, and Peace entered a cavern containing some bedrolls and a small fire.  
Jack hung his head and groaned. "Ohh, this looks familiar."  
"Indeed, O'Neill," Teal'c spoke up immediately. "It is the very same cavern in which we discovered the truth about Shevan."  
"The truth?" Peace asked with a strange expression on her face.  
Jack shook his head, "Sam just figured out that the guy wasn't who he said he was."  
"But he told you the truth about the misseks, didn't he?"  
Jack nodded, "There was that." He appraised Peace with a keen eye.  
"So not everything he says is a complete lie, it sounds like."  
"Just in case," Jack said, moving toward the entrance. "We should make sure."  
"Wait!" Peace cried. "Let me; I can sense things a lot better than you can. And besides," she smiled, "you need to rest."  
Jack lowered himself onto a bedroll and leaned back against the pile of burlap-covered hard surfaces. (Crates, maybe?) It felt good to get off his feet. At once, Peace was gone.

Seconds later, her voice echoed in his mind.  
**"Jack? Is that you?"**  
He smirked, "Well, that was fast."  
**"I know, I'm sorry it took so long; I've been searching for you guys as fast as I could. I'm just glad you're all right. Is Teal'c there with you?"**  
Jack frowned in confusion; did she mistake his sarcasm for criticism?  
"What do you mean, searching for us?" he thought to her, "You already found us, you're searching for Daniel and Sam."  
**"No, no,"** Peace corrected, **"Daniel and Sam are with me."**  
"What? Where did you find them?"  
**"On the surface; is Shevan still there with you?**"  
"Not that I can tell; we're still trapped in the tunnels. You're trying to help us get past the misseks, remember?"  
**"What misseks? I—oh dear!"**  
Peace's image materialized at the end of the tunnel. Silently, she moved about the cavern.  
**"Listen carefully,"** Peace spoke into Jack's thoughts, **"the image you see of me is not real."**  
"We know, Peace; you produced the illusion from my memory."  
**"But this one that you're looking at now is not mine! I haven't been able to produce an image of myself since Shevan manipulated your perception and cut me off from you! There are no misseks! It's Shevan! He's lying to you!"**  
"Manipulated how?"  
Peace turned around. "What was that?"  
Jack realized too late that he had spoken the last question aloud.  
"Never mind," he said dismissively. "Did you find anything?"  
Peace sighed, "I'm sure Daniel and Sam are still alive, but the misseks still hold the tunnel, so you wouldn't be able to get to them."  
"Ah, that's too bad," Jack remarked, a bit too lamely.  
Peace tipped her head, "Something is wrong, I can sense it!"  
"You're right about that," Jack rose to his feet and stared her dead in the eye.  
"It's you."  
Pseudo-Peace snorted, "Me? Where did you get such a crazy idea?"  
Teal'c stood close behind Jack, "From Peace herself."  
Pseudo-Peace smiled as if she thought they were joking, but when they did not smile back, hers dropped.  
"Well," she sauntered saucily, "Look who decided to wise up! It's about time you two thickheads figured out what is really going on here!"  
Jack folded his arms, "And what might that be?"  
"Ooh, aren't we skeptical now!" Pseudo-Peace mocked him. "I was so sure you wouldn't believe me, Colonel, but you fell for positively everything!"  
"Shevan?" Jack ignored the taunting illusion and decided to go straight for the source. "I know you're around here somewhere! Come out and explain yourself!"  
"I'm as close as you're going to get," Pseudo-Peace retorted. "I _am_ Shevan! Or at least, that's what she—" she pointed to the pile of burlaps, "wants you to think—isn't that right, Della?"  
In one swift move, false Peace had swept the covering off the life pod. The inside looked very much like Peace's, but that couldn't be.  
"Great, another illusion," Jack remarked.  
"What makes you think this," she rapped on its surface and it thunked, "isn't real?"  
"You're interacting with it," Jack pointed out. "A mental illusion can't interact with something solid." He grinned at her.  
Pseudo-Peace grinned also. "Who says I was the one doing the interacting?"  
With that, the image disappeared and in its place stood a younger man who looked very familiar.  
He chuckled heartily. "You don't know how long I've been waiting for someone to realize what's actually going on. I'm just disappointed it took nearly forever!"  
"You'll get over it," Jack retorted.  
Shevan shrugged. "You're right, I will."  
"All right, we're done here," Jack whipped out his gun from behind his back. "Now get us out of here!"  
"No," Shevan answered, holding up his empty hands. "I'm sorry; having you here serves my purposes. Go ahead," he taunted, "shoot me; I am unarmed."  
Jack clenched his jaw and scowled at the man. Finally, he lowered his gun.  
"Screw this," he muttered, lunging for Shevan.

The two men tussled there in the cavern, landing punches, twisting arms, throwing each other in an attempt to incapacitate the other. Shevan proved a skilled and dangerous fighter, and very soon, he gained the upper hand and landed the blow that ended the fight. Jack crumpled to the ground, unconscious.  
Shevan presented his fists to Teal'c. He was panting only a little from his fight with Jack, but the glint in his eye plainly challenged the Jaffa.  
"Come on and take me," he spat, "What have you got?"

Teal'c willingly stepped up to oppose the man who would not hesitate to kill the innocent. If Shevan assumed that the Stargate team would be easily dispatched as long as they were kept from any kind of weapons, he soon realized that his perception of Jaffa in relation to humans was severely lacking. Every time Shevan went for a punch in a vulnerable area, Teal'c's strong arm blocked him while a fist like a heavy boulder crashed into his chest. Shevan resorted to dancing out of reach and slipping out of his clutches, but it seemed that Teal'c could practically predict where Shevan would go and meet him there, a behemoth as tall and dark as the stones around him. Shevan—for the first time since the telepath connected with his mind—knew desperation. He frantically made one more dodge, and the Jaffa's hands closed around his throat. Shevan felt the floor of the cavern sink away from his feet as Teal'c lifted him and slammed him agsinst the wall.  
Shevan stared down into those hard, silent eyes...and he smiled.  
"You will end this charade now," Teal'c growled, "and you will allow us to leave."  
Shevan gasped for air, but he kept the grin as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. "You think you've won," he rssped, "you think I am totally at your mercy." He managed to release two short chuckles. "You're wrong." He directed his gaze behind Teal'c for so long that the Jaffa involuntarily followed his gaze.

The life pod at the end of the room began to glow and move toward the middle of the room.  
**"Guys,"** Peace's voice said, **"I think it's time. I feel...different. I think—I think I can open my eyes."**  
Teal'c turned back to Shevan and tightened his grip slightly. "Cease the illusion!" he ordered. Suddenly, it felt as if his arms turned to jelly and Shevan dropped to the ground, heaving and gasping. He looked up at Teal'c as the tall alien sank to the ground as blood began seeping from his nose and ears. Jack recovered consciousness in time to see Peace's life pod open, and as the plasma shield faded, he felt the wave of heat, and it felt like every bit of tissue in his body caught fire.

She was there! She had thought she was on the surface, but she was down there in the cavern with them! Jack felt his consciousness slipping, as Shevan stood, unaffected by the devastation.

Peace, meanwhile, actually opened her eyes to witness the two dying, bleeding men, and her enemy, standing strong.  
**"Oh no!"** She clenched her eyes shut and focused her attention on closing the shield. **"Not again! I'm so sorry! I didn't—"**  
"Peace!" Jack screamed, writhing in pain. "Stop!"

**"I—I can't!"** she whined frantically. **"It's too strong! I can't fight it! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"** She fought for control as Shevan laughed maniacally.

"Go!" Jack roared.  
With an agonized wail, Peace finally gained enough telepathic momentum to send the life pod sailing up toward the ceiling as his world spun into complete darkness.


	10. Chapter 10: Vulnerability

Up on the surface, Daniel and Sam sat together, waiting for Peace to finish searching the asteroid for their missing comrades.

Sam slowly peeled away from Daniel, taking off her jacket and laying it aside. Daniel watched her as she began to get very red in the face and fan herself.  
"Did it get really hot all of a sudden?" she asked.

The minute she mentioned it, Daniel also felt a rush of scalding warmth begin at his feet and crawl upwards to his scalp.

They both began pulling at their clothes in the face of the relentless heat.

Daniel cried, "What's going—"

As he was speaking, a large white object emerged over the horizon and hurtled in the opposite direction from them.

Daniel and Sam crumpled in the moment it passed, but as soon as it disappeared to the far side of the asteroid, Sam felt the heat fade from her body. She glanced at Daniel. He was sighing and rubbing his eyes.

"Are you okay?" she asked him.

"Yeah," he replaced his glasses, "I'm... fine. What was that thing?"

Carter glanced after the object with a face full of concern. "It looked like Peace's life pod. I wonder what happened to generate all that heat."

"When she passed over us," Daniel supposed slowly, "It felt like suddenly all the blood in my body started boiling." He looked over at Sam in alarm. "You don't think she—"

Sam nodded gravely, "That just might be the case; and if she was already heated up when she passed us... I heard her crying about something, for a few seconds. Maybe we weren't her first victims."

"Jack and Teal'c!" Daniel leaped to his feet and took off running in the direction Peace had come from.

By the time Sam caught up with him, he was kneeling by the figures of both Jack and Teal'c, who had just begun to stir. Jack pressed a handkerchief to his bleeding nose, while Teal'c merely wiped the blood off his face as his symbiote had gone a long way to repairing the damage the dynamogenesis had done to his body.

"Daniel!" Jack gasped, clasping his friend's hand. "It wasn't her fault; Shevan tricked all of us."

"Are you all right, sir?" Sam asked.

Jack rubbed his forehead, "Nah, I'm fine. How's Teal'c?"

"I am well, Colonel O'Neill," the Jaffa answered.

"Where is Shevan now?" Daniel asked.

"The whereabouts of the deceiver are unknown," Teal'c answered. "Most likely he disappeared while we were unconscious."

Daniel raised his hand, "I'm all for leaving now, before something worse happens!"

"How do we get back?" Sam asked.

"My guess is Shevan must know something about it," Jack guessed, "He seemed pretty confident about getting away after getting us out of the way so he could go after Peace."

"Go after her?" Sam echoed in alarm, "Sir, we have to save her!"

Jack raised his hand, "We are not going anywhere just yet, Major, and we are most certainly not obligated to save someone who has nothing to do with us!" He turned back to the others. "I say let's search the area to find either Shevan or his ticket out of here. We stick together and we do this right, people, that's an order!" He stared pointedly at Sam.

She nodded reluctantly, "Yes sir," she replied, but without much conviction.

Daniel nudged a rock with his foot. To his surprise, it came away easily. He bent down to inspect the area once occupied by the rock.

"Hey guys," he cried, "Check this out!"

"What is it?" Sam joined him.

"I'm not completely sure," Daniel said, but I think it just might explain everything."

On another part of the asteroid, Peace's torment had subsided, but the guilt remained. She could not stop crying as images of Jack, Teal'c, and even Sam and Daniel lying dead on the surface of the asteroid confronted her sightless eyes.  
She had done this! They were strangers to her, they had shown nothing but kindness, and this is how she relayed them: with torture crueler than earned punishment.

"You're nothing but a killer," the voice inside her head growled, "a killer—and an idiot for thinking that you would ever have the chance to be something different. People like you don't get second chances. You don't deserve them."

How many times had she told herself that she didn't deserve to live? And how many times had she dismissed the voice, saying that she did not deserve to die, either, because she never intentionally harmed anyone since her internment.  
Peace knew that she could no longer cling to that status; she wasn't innocent anymore. She had blood on her hands.

"And who's to say it wasn't on purpose, either?" the voice continued. "You've wanted to be able to see for so long that you didn't even think twice about the cost of your desire."

**"I'm a killer,"** Peace responded to the voice. "**A selfish, murdering child!**"

"That's right," the voice said, and Peace even felt an odd sort of vindication from her admission. "Chaos is all you ever were, and ever will be. You were never Peace."

**"Wait, no!"** Peace found it a bit odd to be arguing with her thoughts, but something about them felt out of place. She rationalized, **"I have memories of my life before the Chaos; I remember some small things!"**

"Hmm, yes," the voice mused, "a few pinpricks on the fingers. But you really don't know the truth, do you?"

**"The truth?"**

"Long ago, a reputable Senator on a distant planet wanted to cause the birth of a child genius; by a series of genetic tampering experiments, a child was born with all the markings of a brilliant intellect—and a terrible curse."

**"The child—I was manufactured?"**

"More than that; you were a colossal failure! Your own mother was sedated when you were born, and once they had severed your auditory and optical nerves, they shipped you off to a barren world where no one would find you."

**"The Secrandans found me!"**

"They did, and what thanks did you give them for rescuing you?"

Once again, the memory enveloped her senses, and Peace was back in the operating room, watching everyone die.  
**"No!"** she screamed, **"I didn't mean it!"**

"Yes you did!" the voice snarled, "It's in your nature! It's all you've ever done!" There again, her new friends dying. All she'd ever seen of the world around her was death and destruction.

"It's all you've ever seen," the voice went on, "and all you'll ever know!"

Peace was too overcome to respond to this.

The voice continued in warm, hypnotic tones. "It would have been better if you had never been born."

**"I should not exist, since everything I've ever done is so terrible, so destructive,"** the miserable young woman agreed.

"It would put things right if you were to end your own life."

**"It would be right—oh!"** Peace could not bring herself to say it. **"But please,"** she begged, **"There has to be some other way!"**

The voice would not relent, "There is no other way! Now, say it!"

Peace repeated forlornly, **"The only way put things right is to kill myself. I must put an end to Chaos."**

"Do it," ordered the imperious voice.


	11. Chapter 11: Exposed

"Peace."  
Another voice cut through her consciousness, one she never expected to hear again. "Sam? I don't believe it! You're supposed to be dead! Or," she hesitated, "are you just a memory of what once was?"  
Peace immediately saw that Sam pictured herself standing right beside her. "I'm fine Peace, I'm right here. You don't have to do this!"  
"Yes—Yes I do!" Peace sobbed, "I am a killer with no hope of healing!"  
Sam struggled to keep her composure as she felt the heat building in her body again. She backed away, but not too far. "Peace!" she thought frantically, "We can figure this out! Just hold on!"  
"It's too late!" Peace's telepathic voice cried. "Get away while you still can, Sam: I'm going to release my power to incinerate myself. It's the only way!"  
Sam saw the edges of Peace's body begin to glow. She shielded her eyes from the glare. "What about the rest my friends?"  
"They will be safe," Peace answered, extraordinarily calm now, in spite of the circumstances. "The plasma shield will retain the blast."  
Sam looked for the sheen of plasma she had seen before when the pod was closed, but Peace's figure showed up clearly in the pod. "What shield?" Sam asked.  
A vicious laughter coming from somewhere beyond the pool of molten rock forming around Peace's pod echoed in Sam's ears. "Oh, my!" the familiar, sinister voice taunted. "It appears Peace does not want to listen to you. Too bad!" Shevan laughed again.  
"Peace stop!" Sam begged as her knees gave out. "Peace, this isn't you! The voice you hear is the enemy talking, not you!"  
"She can't hear you," Shevan snarled. "I dare say she doesn't care."  
Sam refused to give up. "Peace listen to me: Daniel figured it out!"  
Peace could not respond, but Shevan snapped, "What?"  
Sam knew she had only a short space of time to catch Shevan while he was off his guard. She forged ahead.  
"We found a series of messages hidden in a cache for you, from your parents!"  
"Her parents are dead!" Shevan insisted.  
Sam ignored him. "You are the daughter of a Secrandan official; your parents educated you while they waited for a possible solution to the nervous issue causing your body to produce vast amounts of microwave radiation at the slightest sensory activation. That's why you know so much about science and medicine, Peace, and why you can remember reading words with your fingers—you studied academics on Secranda!"  
"I—I did?" Peace's thoughts were faint, but the heat only leveled off, it did not cease.  
Sam rose to her feet and kept talking. "When they found a group of doctors who promised they'd be able to fix, your parents thought at first it was too good to be true. They weren't trying to make you different, they were trying to help you. They were so sad when they found out that the doctors really didn't know what they were doing. Those doctors made a mistake and made your condition worse. You were sent here to this asteroid because your parents believed it was best for your survival. The last message we found said they were still working hard find cure."  
Peace did not respond for a long time, but Sam felt the dynamogenesis subsiding. "They...Love me..." Peace finally thought. The words came slowly, as if she was working hard to let them sink in. "My parents... want me to live!"  
"They care about you think about you a lot," Sam affirmed. "They did not forget. They wanted you to know that they believe you have capacity for great things. You are not Chaos!"  
The heat was almost gone now. Sam knew Shevan did not stand a chance.  
That did not stop him from going after her. "Keep out!" he barked angrily, "Della is mine! I will have my revenge for killing my brother!"  
Peace began to falter in her resistance and heat up again. "What did you call me?" her voice sounded shocked.  
Sam hardly knew what to think; she had assumed that eveything Shevan had said about Peace was a lie, including her "real" name. "Is your name Della?" she asked.  
Considering the answer held off Peace's agitation for a moment. "It is..." Sam heard her gasp. "Oh! I remember everything! My parents knew about me, I did learn things, even though I could not see or hear—you lied to me!" she directed her attention at Shevan. "You are despicable! I have only one thing to say to you."  
"What would that be?" Shevan asked arrogantly.  
Without warning, Peace dissolved the shield on her life pod and sat up. She opened her eyes and Sam gasped to see them such a fiery purple color. Della extended her hands toward Shevan, and a glowing light emanated from them. "DIE!" she thundered.  
The ground rocked with the force of the blast, and Sam was thrown off her feet. When she looked up again, all that remained of Shevan was a large crater in the surface of the asteroid.  
Sam ran forward as Peace sank back onto her pod, panting heavily. Her face was flushed and sweat poured from her forehead.  
"Peace—Della!" Sam gasped. Without thinking, she clasped the young woman's hand.  
"Sam," Della croaked. The fire in her violet eyes had all but gone out.  
"Carter!"  
Jack's yell preceded the man himself, closely followed by Daniel and Teal'c.  
"Are you two all right?" Daniel called. "What happened?"  
"It was—Della," Sam gestured to the woman next to her. The hand clasped in her own was sweaty and very hot to the touch, but already the temperature had cooled considerably.  
Sam saw Jack watching Della carefully.  
"It's all right, sir," she said. "Shevan is gone. Della—defeated him."  
"Della?" Daniel echoed, "Then that means—"  
"Yes," Della answered for herself, opening her eyes and looking around at everyone, "My name is Della, and I feel that I am no longer a danger to anyone."  
"What makes you so sure?" Jack asked.  
Della chuckled softly, "Jack, I just obliterated my most powerful adversary. I doubt I could manufacture the energy to light a candle right now."  
Jack remained a respectful distance away. "Give it time," he warned.  
Peace said nothing.  
Daniel clasped Sam's shoulder. "Did it work?"  
Sam nodded, "Of course it did; once Della knew the truth, there was nothing Shevan could say to convince her to trust him again."  
"Sam?" Della squeezed her hand and spoke slowly. "Would you do something for me?"  
"Sure, Della."  
Della sighed, "I'm losing my telepathy, so I don't even know if you can hear this, but could you remove the ear-pieces? I want to hear your voices with my own ears, just once."  
Jack raised an eyebrow. "I'll be over here," he remarked dubiously.  
Sam leaned over and gently eased the plugs out of Della's ears.  
She gasped as all sorts of sounds happened at once. "I'm healed," she cried softly.  
"Hello, Della," Sam said with a smile.  
She looked at Daniel. "You must be the other doctor," she guessed.  
"It's good to finally meet you in person," he greeted her awkwardly, "as—ah, as opposed to, y'know, in the head."  
Della chuckled. "Where's Jack?"  
"I'm back here," Jack called, waving his hand. "Hiya." Aside, he whispered to Teal'c, "If she's healed, then when will her powers kick back in?"  
The Jaffa apparently had no use for the concept of whispering. "She is not healed, Colonel O'Neill," he answered impassively. "She is, in fact, dying."  
The news settled terribly over the group.  
"What?" Jack said, staring at the young woman in the pod.  
She nodded, "You've guessed my secret, Teal'c. I won't last much longer; the battle with Shevan was too much strain on my body."  
"You don't have to die!" Sam begged her. "Not so soon after you just discovered who you really are! We can get you back to Secranda; I'm sure they can revive you!"  
"I can only imagine how you must feel, Sam," Della answered ruefully, "but you must leave me here. Someday they will find me and discover how I died, and doubtless they will know I went among friends." She closed her eyes and winced. "It's time. Thank you for all you have done for me. Some of you might think you're not as important as the rest, or perhaps even more important than all the rest, but remember this: each part of your team, taken in equal measure, contributes to the success of the whole. Any one of you working alone would never bevabke to accomplish what you all can do. I will never forget you."  
"We will not forget you, either," Teal'c answered.  
Della sighed. "Chaos I came here. Peace..." her voice faded, "...I...leave..."  
All was still. The Stargate team watched uneasily as the life pod automatically sealed and glazed over. Then it began to hum as it rose into the air. The team watched a small device drop out of the base of the pod. It was about the size of a small computer tablet. Daniel picked it up.

"What is it?" Jack asked.  
"I'm not sure," Daniel said, squinting at the symbols on the screen, "but these symbols match those normally found on a Stargate."  
"Is it possible that it could be a remote with which to dial home?" Teal'c asked.  
Sam glanced back at the pod, "Of course!" she cried. "The pod must have been programmed with one of these, so that in the event of Della's death, someone who used the Starbridge to check on her would have a means of getting back, since the asteroid itself does not have a Stargate."  
Daniel looked around at the others. "I've been curious to find out what's really going on in Secranda, what that culture is like."  
"Oh will you just stop it with the culture thing and just dial us home, Daniel?" Jack stormed.  
"Listen, Jack, we could learn something really valuable, here! Unlike your missions, which seem to consist entirely of taking things—"  
"Guys!" Sam stepped between them. Once she had their attention, she nodded toward the pod, which had come to rest on the asteroid.  
"Peace?" she hinted.  
Jack and Daniel looked at each other; both immediately remembered the lonely young woman and the last thing she told them, about their importance.  
Grudgingly, Jack chose to be first to stick out his hand. "Peace?" he offered.  
Daniel slowly shook hands with Jack.  
"Peace," he agreed.


End file.
